


Blackjack

by ScarletteStar1



Category: Homeland
Genre: BDSM, Edging, F/M, Flashbacks, Hurt/Comfort, Implied Daddy Kink, Oral, PTSD, Spanking, Trauma, Vaginal Sex, age gap, safe word
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-22
Updated: 2020-10-22
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:14:59
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,393
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27149251
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ScarletteStar1/pseuds/ScarletteStar1
Summary: Saul discovered a means of bringing Carrie down to earth when mania took her too far off the planet. And it also helped her feel something, anything at all, when her medications numbed her to the point of despair. . .  It was obvious what he took from their deal.Takes place in Berlin at the very end of Season Four.
Relationships: Saul Berenson/Carrie Matthison
Kudos: 6





	Blackjack

**Author's Note:**

> Please mind the tags. I write HL fic that might be different and not to everyone's taste. So if you don't like it please don't read it. xoxoxo

**I.**

In the business of espionage they don't call it a _safe word_. They call it _code._

She'd slipped their code beneath his hotel door, knowing as much as he hated her at that particular moment, he'd still come.

And then he turned his back on her.

 _Now_ he faces her.

They stand in the hospital hallway outside the room where Quinn lies, still unconscious.

That night, in the middle of the city, his face had looked so hard. He used it like a rock and smashed her to bits. He walked away and left her in a heap on the wet sidewalk. His cruelty shocked her, made her weep for loss of the person she trusted most in the entire world.

 _Now_ he says he needs her and looks softer than a child, palms up, beseeching.

"What happened to the fucking wall between us, Saul?"

He steps into her space and she smells the faint, peppered amber of his cologne. He's still wearing that middle eastern stuff, she surmises. Or maybe he put it on as a gesture just for her- an olfactory bridge.

"I was wrong," he says. He picks up her hand and examines it like he's just picked up a file. Carrie remembers the letter she left, unsheathed from its envelope on the other side of the door, in the room where Quinn lies, unresponsive. "Please. Let me make it up to you. You haven't left here in days. Have dinner with me." He squeezes her fingers. She squeezes her eyes shut, trying to ignore the sudden bliss of his touch on her skin, trying to ignore the months of yearning and grief she'd endured, realizing she just wanted to be held.

"I can't," she tries.

"Please. I'm begging."

"You begging?" She scoffs. "What an unusual turn of events."

"Carrie. Just spend some time with me. I promise I won't ask about the job again."

"But. . . What if Quinn. . ."

"They'll call you if there's any change in his condition."

Coercion is still coercion within and without the business of espionage.

She nods. She goes to collect her things from the room where machines breathe for Quinn.

**II.**

She doesn't think she'll be able to eat, but Saul orders for both of them from the hotel's dinner menu, and when the food comes she's ravenous. She feels him watch her and doesn't even care. She slurps a big bowl of soup, nibbles a plate of salad, and devours a steak and potato. She feels the pleasure he takes watching her eat with gusto as he politely and deliberately works his way through his supper.

"I'm not going upstairs with you," she announces when the coffee comes.

"I didn't ask you to come upstairs with me," he grumbles through a smile. "Wouldn't dream of it."

She should be annoyed, but with her stomach full for the first time in weeks, and Saul sitting across from her, she can't find any other feeling besides contentment. The volume on her shame and guilt about Quinn decreases until it's barely audible. Her coffee is strong. Saul's big, square fingers inch toward hers on the table. "Thank you for dinner," she says and pats his hand like a child might pat a puppy. The gesture clearly rattles him. His eyebrows knit together, he scratches his beard and clears his throat, but he composes himself quickly.

"So, Kid. What's next for you if you're not coming to work for me?"

Her heart becomes untethered and flaps madly in her chest. "Don't call me that,' she hisses and yanks her hand off the table. She does not compose herself as neatly as he had. He chuckles. His face is clean, but he runs the white cloth of his napkin over it anyway, as if he waves a white flag before her. He rises from the table. He kisses her temple. His beard prickles her and she tries to ignore the rising temptation, the realization she still wants to be held, by him, in their own, special and secret way.

He straightens. "I'm going up. Goodnight, Kid." His voice rumbles all the way down her spine.

After a moment, she rises from the table and follows him to the bank of elevators.

**III.**

In the business of espionage they don't call it _love_. They call it _compromise_ , as in, _you have been compromised_.

They were always careful. For them, it wasn't ever love. 

It started so many years ago, they can barely trace its strange, twisted origins.

But if asked under duress, and forced to explain themselves, they'd both probably say it was for the sake of their careers. A mutually beneficially arrangement, it was how they managed to get the job done. Strategies of self regulation. Special ops training. 

Saul had discovered it as a means of bringing Carrie down to earth when mania took her too far off the planet. And it also worked nicely to help her feel something, anything at all, when her medications numbed her to the point of despair and she was tempted to stop taking them. It was obvious what he took from their deal.

For years, they'd have both easily dismissed his hand around her neck, squeezing until she was barely conscious as he pounded into her, as nothing more than professional development. It was no more than a late night at the office when he bound her, restrained her, gagged her, blindfolded her, and then licked her clit until she begged him to stop. Hours of edging her, denying her a climax until she was so tight she could barely take him, was just a lesser known part of the job description. The ruler, the wooden spoon, her hairbrush, his hand- they were all just tools of the trade- used firmly and repeatedly across her ass. Bite marks on her breasts, bruises on her thighs. Work. Her, on her knees, choking on his cock, kissing his feet, taking his steaming cum on her face and tits, submitting to his every request- it was work. Him, reciting a litany of filth and degradation, calling her names, asking her unthinkable things. She allowed him to bend and use her body in any way he needed. Her complete submission fulfilled his every craving, but satisfaction was just a fringe benefit of a good working relationship.

Yes, they'd swear it was just the price of doing business, and they'd believe it.

They'd agreed on the safe word while laughing over it. It was a dirty, inside joke they shared. In the situation room, when he'd cram a stick into his mouth for luck, she'd stifle a giggle and he'd wink at her. 

Neither of them ever used it. During all of the long, late night sessions and scenes (all for work, all part of the job), neither of them ever became scared or uncomfortable enough to make it stop. 

Carrie mentions this fact to him in the elevator. "It was the _only time_ , in all the years we've known one another, in _all the years_ we've had our arrangement, that I ever safe worded."

"I know," he sighs.

"And you let me down."

"I know." 

The door opens on his floor and he steps out. Carrie hangs back for a moment, but only a moment. 

**IV.**

Their game of pretending she's in his room for a casual visit doesn't last long. 

He shrugs out of his jacket and loosens his tie. He pours himself a scotch and tosses her a bottle of water. She doesn't drink alcohol these days, but the taste of his mouth as she slides her tongue into it, is rich, decadent with his drink. She pushes him back into a chair and straddles his lap. Muscle memory takes over from there, or at least it attempts to.

He pulls her sweater over her head, nuzzles her neck and breasts, grinds up against her with a lusty groan. "What are we doing, Kid?" His question is half rhetoric, half consent form. 

"Remembering, forgetting. Whatever you want, _Daddy_ ," she purrs and suckles his ear lobe. She hasn't called him that in as long as either of them can remember. The sound of the two syllables echoes through the canyons inside of them. She feels it resonate between her body and his. 

"Fuck," he sighs and squeezes her waist in his fingers, pressing his thumbs into the soft flesh of her belly. She offers her neck and he tries to bite it, but it seems he's lost his teeth. She brings his fingers to encircle her throat, but it seems his bones have melted. She cocks her head, listening to hear him call her his _cum kitten_ , his _fuck princess_ , his _dirty baby_ , but it seems his vocal cords have withered within the column of his neck. 

She undresses. She removes his glasses and undresses him. He's hard and hot as the gates of hell, and this makes them both smile, knowing something still works between them. He sits on the edge of the bed and she turns her ass to him. He slaps it, but it doesn't sting. It barely makes a sound. "I'm sorry, Kid. I don't know if I can. . ." he starts, but she's already sinking down on her knees in front of him. She fills her mouth with his enormous cock and begins sucking him off. He moans as she circles his tip and runs her tongue through his slit, tasting his arousal, the familiar bitter zinc and salty sweet of it. But that's about the only thing that is familiar about this transaction. He doesn't pinch her breasts, he doesn't try to choke her, he doesn't attempt punishing her with enraged thrusts down her throat. He sits back and allows her control over his pleasure, allows her to set a pace at which she licks and strokes him. While she does, he weaves his fingers gently into her hair. 

When she opens her eyes and looks up at him, she sees he gazes down on her with eyes full of warmth and something else she can't quite name. When she attempts to speed up on him, he knots his fist in her hair, stops her, drags her lips up off his shaft, over his tip with a wet _pop_. He lifts her onto the bed and pins her down with his body, knees open her legs and plunges into her wet heat. She moans at the sudden filling of her hole, the way he instantly finds the spot on her inner walls to rub up against. Pinioning her shoulders with his strong hands, he drives into her good and hard several times. She grunts and arches up off the bed to meet his hips with hers.

Her mind scrambles to collect every sensation and sort it into a composition of something that seems familiar. 

Her first orgasm is sweet and heavy and he fucks her through it with generous, deep strokes. "Yes, Daddy, fuck me!" she whimpers, greedy for the swing back up and down, the particular pleasure he knows how to give her. But as she wraps her legs around him and starts to come again, something shifts. He takes his hands off her shoulders and wraps his arms around her body, cradles her almost. He kisses her neck, nips her shoulder. He rolls her breast gently in his palm, licks at the stiff bead of her nipple.

This is not a play with which she is familiar. 

These moves do not fit anywhere into their bizarre rainbow of dangerous delights.

She shakes her head, but she's already coming. She starts to spasm around him, but there's a flash behind her eyes like gunshots in a dark tunnel. She's not frightened. She can't breathe. She's terrified. Saul is holding her and fucking her slow and deep, breathing hard on her neck. She feels his breath, she can't find hers. Still climaxing around his thick cock, she gasps, "Blackjack." 

He doesn't hear her at first. She's not certain if she's even really said it. 

"Blackjack," she says it again. " _Blackjack_!" She fucking screams it. He's already stopped and pulled out, but she's still saying it like it's the only word she knows. 

He drags her body into his. Hushes her. Rubs her back. 

She cries in his arms like she might never stop. 

**V.**

Eventually she sleeps.

All night he holds her. His body is exceptionally tender. He doesn't say a word, yet he's never shared so much.

The next morning she wakes before him, showers, dresses. When she emerges from the bathroom, he's sitting in a chair, cloaked in a fluffy robe.

"I ordered coffee and croissants," he says. 

"I've got to get back to the hospital," she explains. 

"I figured," he shrugs. 

She gathers her things, puts on her coat. "Saul. . ." she starts. He rises and they embrace. "That night, the night you walked away from me, you pulverized me into a million pieces. I couldn't believe it."

"Carrie. I'll spend the rest of my life apologizing if it'll help," he's even softer than he was the day before in the hospital hallway. 

"I forgave you. I did, it's just, I had to put myself back together and apparently I put some of the pieces back differently." Her hair is still damp. She tucks it behind her ears. "I know I hurt you too, back then." 

He nods and whispers, "Broke my heart." His eyebrows alone express volumes as they bob over his eyes. Carrie swallows hard. The eyebrows of another human have never threatened to destroy her before. 

She takes his hands in hers. "Then you understand that when you're broken like that you become something else. It's like I tried to tell you yesterday, I'm not that person anymore. Neither are you. We are something else now."

"Funny, it feels more real than it ever did," he exhales. "Even if it is something else."

"I'll see you, Saul," Carrie says and kisses his cheek. She lets herself out of his room and finds her way back to the elevator. 

As she rides down to the lobby, walks out to the street, and makes her way back to the place where Quinn lies silent and still, she wonders what on earth you call a thing capable of breaking your heart, if it isn't love.

**Author's Note:**

> And if you did read it. . . I'd love to hear from you! comments give me air to breath and make my little shipper heart flutter. Thanks so much. xoxoxo


End file.
